“No good?” cried Leslie angrily. “You mean you’re tired, and have not the manhood to continue the search.”
“No, sir, I don’t,” said the man quietly. “I mean I know this coast as well as most men. I’ll go on searching everywhere you like; but I don’t think the poor lad can be alive.”
“Ay, ay, that’s right, mate,” growled two others of his fellows.
“He was a great swimmer,” continued the man sadly; “but it’s my belief he never come up again.”
“Why do you say that?” cried the detective from his boat, as the four hung clustered together, a singular-looking meeting out there on the dark sea by lantern light.
“Why do I say that? Why ’cause he never hailed any on us who knew him, and was ready to take him aboard. Don’t matter how good a swimmer a man is, he’d be glad of a hand out on a dark night, and with the tide running so gashly strong.”
“You may be right,” said Leslie, “but I can’t go back like this. Now, my lads, who’s for going on?”
“All on us,” said the fisherman who had first spoken, and the boats separated to continue their hopeless task.
All at once there was a faint streak out in the east, a streak of dull grey, and a strange wild, faint cry came off the sea.
“There!” cried the detective; “pull, my lads, pull! he is swimming still. No, no, more towards the right.”